Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian, puts the British election in context:
Lost among the long faces of Labour was this fact: a party which had never won two full terms in government yesterday won a third. That is not to be dismissed. There was a time, back in the 1980s, when such a feat seemed to be the remotest fantasy.
Even the midnight rumours of a Labour majority of 50, later revised, would once have thrilled, rather than crushed, the party’s supporters. In 1974, for example, that kind of margin would have felt like a landslide. And, lest we forget, Margaret Thatcher started a revolution in 1979 with a majority of just 44.
A sober view would say yesterday was no disaster, merely a sign that, as David Blunkett declared, “normal politics has returned” – that the rhythms of the 1960s and 1970s have been restored.
Nonetheless, many of your Labourites do have long faces today, and the usual pack of Communists want Tony Blair’s head. This seems a strange reaction to winning a third consecutive election for the first time in your party’s history.